Toolong

???? ???? All the points you make are, I believe, incontestably true......or at least as likely as likely can get. The dots you join make very sound & simple sense out of an almost infinite number of speculative guesses at exactly why?, who?, how?, when & what's next?, etc.. Recall something someone once said: 'The truth always lies within a narrow and certain compass, but error is immense.' Tony's almost certainly hustling his way, as we speak, on the fringe or* slap bang in the middle, of that narrow & certain compass. But he....and they.... can't hustle through what will inexorably come....and that's the next election (if things are not interrupted & changed by coups of the left or right). If MFP can keep their mojo alive till then......game over. * no 'or' really, I was kidding. He's slap banging.....right now.

Ha! Very good point. And well made. Your 2nd paragraph is particularly spot on and perfectly put. ???? That notwithstanding, your 3rd gets my approval too! Yes, you're bang on right about that. The point you make about people's/media focus being on senators' decisions & not on fact they've really no darned right to make those decisions at all in the first place, is so evidently the case when properly considered. And that's what - imo - is so insidious about the way things have been plotted & implemented by 'the establishment' since the coup in 2014 and after the sham election in 2017. The 'normalizing' (the wilful forgetting, the sleight-of-hand 'moving on' acceptance, etc) of Prayuth & Prawit, from military junta chiefs in green, to politicians in suits & silk, was masterfully done. As you so neatly put it, re their MO, it all cleverly 'fractures the causal chain and muddies the waters'. ????

Never have I felt quite so forlorn and in utter despair about what is happening here. To all who say it was obvious all along that this outcome would come to pass: yes, of course....I too knew that. Yet there can surely be no satisfaction in one's predictions being proven right. Now where will the more progressive Thai media go with this? It's crucial. If they make tiny barking noises at first, about PT breaking electoral pledges & betrayal of MFP etc, only to roll over in a few days and adopt the position of 'Well, that's it, effectively, this is what we have, new normal, nothing to see here'......as Srettha, Prawit and Anutin tickle their media tummies with cliched bluster about the need to move on now and get the economy back on track.....ad nauseum.........then the establishment plan will have worked like a dream. But....the progressive media should not let this all be quickly forgotten. Like never before, I think they need to keep their lights shining on the ugly truth of all this corrupt wrong-doing.

Agreed. As I said, your situation is one I recognize quite well, and your stance on the matter is one I too adopted and think is most sensible. And it did turn out to be so.

Once went through period long ago, just after marrying my Thai wife, when I experienced circumstances very, very similar to your own (& your wife's) current 'predicament', shall we say. 30 years on and having gone through it and dealing with it in the way I did, and my wife did (I hesitate to say 'we did', as we had compatible views on it on the whole, but with critical differences of cultural background, etc). Anyway....long story short : only advice I feel is worth saying without risk of influencing you towards a potentially negative outcome is that it helped me (& thus us) greatly to maintain a calm, non-confrontational resolve to resist all pressure to start being the foreign benefactor of deep pockets (they were NOT deep....still not????). Here's a thing though.......did you, when you married, pay any kind of dowry? I did NOT. So my rascally but likeable Thai father-in-law (now deceased) asked to 'borrow' 30k (a lot in 1991). I figured ok.....he'll pay it back. ???? Of course, he didn't. Me no happy, long time......until eventually realised, with some amused respect & appreciation, that the old canny devil had got his dowry alright. From that point on, began an eventual, considerable liking for each other. Don't despair. You can get through it. ????

I can boast of very few distinctions in life and count myself a modest enough bloke, but one boast for which I think I may be excused, is being the very best at swearing & cursing. I really have no equal and could swear & curse for England at the Olympic Games, bagging at least one gold, possibly eight. However, the injustice of what has been done to Pita and MFP - and the country - has me, for once, unable to summon any swear word or curse that is up to the task.......even though, yes, it had become obvious it would happen. Just eff**g speechless now it has. (But if one squints in this dark eclipsing of hope, then u can just make it out: that in the establishment's vile act, a martyr has been made who - with the party & its supporters behind him - will one day settle the account. ???? Comforting to consider...but for now, who comes off the sub's bench to be PM....and makes any happy difference at all to the whole elite-run, status-quo mess?)

We shall just have to disagree, h90, and leave it there.

From soldier who helps direct criminal military operation to usurp power from elected civilian govt, to smiling, avuncular, apparently 'enigmatic' political player : quite the makeover, eh Prawit? But so quickly do you bring to mind the expression, 'You can't polish a turd.'

So true, yes.

Can't decide whether your approach is ridiculous......or shows a certain, admirably cocky degree of flair & panache in your disregard of such tedious bureaucracy! But whatever works for you, Celsius. ????

The use (or misuse) of defamation law in Thailand has done - imo - far more harm than any good it may have been designed to do. It appears - at least in my unlearned view - to be rather like a civil version of the lese majeste law, about which I perhaps should not say any more. (But as I said, I am no expert in matters of law and do concede that many other countries do have defamation laws. I wonder if it then depends on how the laws are applied & executed.)

Best little media opinion piece & nutshelling of the situation I've read so far. Somewhat naively idealistic in places but has, overall, an uncompromising tone that is refreshingly unequivocal. But as a foreigner based here who's long seen the dark goings-on here over the years but never himself - of course - been in a position to actually put his life or principles on the line in any way in support of those opposing those 'dark goings-on', I wonder grimly how many Thais will once again suffer death or injury or persecution in any likely fight-back against the ever-prevailing conservative fat-cats & big guns system.

Gotta disagree, brommers. There's 'the long game' (going along with conventional Thai political & cultural norms that may or may not offer opportunities for change - but never does) that has its merits, but then there's the moment to ride a good tide, and this is it. There is only one way to go here and MFP know it, not just to benefit themselves but for the country to do what its own party name conveys: move forward. So, in some ways, yes, to benefit themselves but only to allow them the chance to (by one day leading a govt) ......finally see that their way of governing & reforming the system can make the country realize its....cliche alert....potential. In fact, in doing this, they are playing the long game imo (even though it may be the only 'game' they can play right now, I admit.) Brommers, I respect your view but beg to differ in my own.

I like good wit, PJ71. Yours ticks the boxes. Nice. ???? (Be funnier still if you actually did do it last Wednesday and are reading my comment with a puzzled look.)

Yep. Agree. Got a feeling Pita's got more 'bounce' in him than Thanathorn. Unfortunately for Thanathorn (whom I think will in time be back in the game, and should be), the 'fight-back' mood wasn't as palpable as it appears to be in Pita's case......imo.

There's a Japanese saying, 'the nail that sticks out must be hammered down' . Guess it's used in context where they who don't conform to norms get put in their place. In this, the Thai context, the hammer blows came, as expected, but I don't think this nail will go down. Bend, but not go down.

I did make it clear enough (I hope) that anyone 'manning the barricades' (I'd rather say 'peacefully protesting') would be & should be Thais, naturally.

In an ideal situation, yes, Otter, and if such a thing did happen, with a successful outcome, then I should know what true contentment is. But you are right, in a way, I don't dispute that. Just a little naive, perhaps (????).

If it is against aseannow policy to allow posts that appear to encourage acts of civil disobedience that may include acts of violence that result in physical harm to parties involved or not involved in such acts, then I suppose it's more than likely moderators my disallow my comments and perhaps rightly so, but it's impossible for me to resist sincerely declaring that I think, sadly, that the only option for all those Thais justifiably outraged at the establishment's barefaced disregard of proper principles.....is an unprecedentedly large uprising against it. United in the single imperative of doing what is right, including they who wear red, yellow, orange or any darned colour, but all Thais of reason who may have become more enlightened by the whole ugly mess. And boy, is it ugly. Ugly, wrong, unacceptable. ????

How can he end a 'political career' that never started? He never WAS a politician. He was a soldier in a suit, with only a soldier's ill-fitting mentality to apply to the role of leading a gov't of a nation who didn't elect him in a free & fair, unrigged election. An arrogant, incompetent man-child who deserves to be chronicled in any modern Thai historical record as exactly that, without a single thing of merit to mitigate that record. If I didn't despise him so much I might even pity him for being the way he is/ was. (And for all that......I fear he won't actually be out of the scene at all, anyway, not by a long shot)

The strategy to repeatedly put forward Pita as PM candidate until term of junta lackey's...sorry, I meant senators.....authority ends, would be unprecedented, unlikely to happen, very problematic no doubt, frustratingly drawn out, do no good to economic stability and so on & so on.......but by golly, if successful would be SUCH a deliciously marvelous payback & lesson to the establishment. One can dream, no? Otherwise.....????????

'No, I CAN'T simplify....' ???????? Look, I get where you're coming from with this post and the apparent sense of frustration behind it, and I'm on your side with that...????.....but you probably CAN simplify, right? If you really wanted to. To the extent any of us are 'dependent' on our gadgets, we mostly choose to be....me included.

A mostly fair & spot-on assessment of what is and what might be. As much as the author rightly points towards how various schemes by certain parties ('schemes' as in 'scheming', imo....with rather negative connotations), are going on, in active & continuous flux, even as I type this.....I find something conspicuously evident & worth noting and that is how the MFP 'appear' to be, in any substantial way, beyond the range of its opponents sniper rifles when it comes to accusations of disingenuous, underhand political hustle.....ie, ruthless, unprincipled scheming. I don't see this with MFP. There are tectonic plates shifting around under Thailand's old rocks that are inexorably and irrestistably about to reformat themselves. And the old bully boys know it.

'Faces five years in prison', in Thailand - as reported by the Thai media - generally means it's possible, according to what the law can potentially deal out (and thus is more attention-grabbing for news consumers), but if any actual penalties are imposed at all in cases like this (bearing in mind he only, in effect, made a bit of an <deleted> of himself, without malicious intent to offend or cause physical harm), they tend to fit the 'crime' with a more humane degree of good sense applied.* The guy seems genuinely contrite, and wtf did he really do that was that wrong, anyway? *Unless the person charged is a member of a progressive Thai political party, in which case, regarding any minor dismeanor of any nature (ie, picking one's nose), the right to the application of good sense may be voided.

Applying the logic (though it's rather hard) that only from having hit 'ROCK BOTTOM' can a real upward ascent towards some kind of lasting, positive development occur in a society, then I wonder if the senators & all the MPs should not just forget about the PM vote altogether and put the sleepy toad in the PM's seat, without any delay. Makes sense: get the toad in there, experience the inevitable consequences, then things genuinely turn towards the light. Hopefully in my lifetime. Right now: total eclipse.